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We were big fans of the first Moto G, mostly because it was a budget smartphone that didn't look or act like your typical budget smartphone. Many phones you can buy for around $200 unlocked are still either cheap, underpowered handsets that can never hope to see updates or any additional support from the company you bought them from, or they're near-end-of-life flagships from years gone by.

Decent, current "midrange" phones from the likes of Samsung, Apple, or HTC can still cost $400 or more without a contract, tying many buyers to two-year agreements with major carriers that subsidize the up-front price but eventually end up charging you more than the phone would have cost in the first place. So a $179 unlocked smartphone that has (so far) gotten prompt updates and features reasonably high-quality hardware was a breath of fresh air. Even nine months past its launch, the original Moto G doesn't have a lot of competition.

Motorola has had quite a bit of success with these low-cost phones, though, so the company isn't resting on its laurels. The second-generation Moto G (called simply the "Moto G" in most advertising materials, though with a "2nd generation" tag on the box, Motorola's site, and the phone's About panel) is already here. What's different? What stays the same? And, more importantly, is this still the best Android phone that $179 can buy?

A couple weeks ago I described the Kogan Agora 4G as a Moto G for people who liked larger, 5-inch screens. Now the Moto G is a Moto G for people who like larger, 5-inch screens.

There are a few other changes to the new version of the Moto G, but the bigger screen (and the corresponding larger body) is the only one that's really worth mentioning. Everything else about the display panel is the same as it was back in December—using the same 720p resolution in a larger display leads to a somewhat lower pixel density (294 PPI, compared to 329 PPI in the original), but it's not so much lower that you really notice when you're reading e-books or viewing images or browsing the Internet. The screen even retains the same vaguely purplish cast, a less-than-perfect aspect of the panel that you don't really notice as much in isolation, but you definitely see when the Moto G is sitting next to a Nexus 5 or a Moto X.

The primary casualty here is contrast—looking at a white element on top of a light grey element (the Chrome address bar, for one) on the new Moto G and the new Moto X demonstrates that it's just harder to tell the difference on the Moto G's display. Blacks aren't as black, either, though this is true to some extent for any LCD display competing against an AMOLED display (AMOLED features essentially "infinite" contrast, since black pixels are just switched all the way off; in an LCD panel those black pixels are still lit). Happily, though, our new Moto G doesn't appear to have the backlight bleed across the top of the screen that the first Moto G did. The screen is still great for the price, it just won't be mistaken for a high-end IPS panel.

If you've seen and held the first-generation Moto G, you know what to expect from this one. It's got solid all-plastic construction, and our black model came with a curved rubberized back panel that feels nice in the hand. Our hands, already accustomed to relatively large phones like the Nexus 5 and HTC One M8, didn't find the larger size of the Moto G objectionable, but if you were interested in the phone primarily because of its smaller size you might be disappointed to see it join the 5-inches-and-up club.

The new Moto G (left) is significantly larger than the old model (right) despite being similar internally.

Andrew Cunningham

Both black Moto Gs share a plastic back with a rubberized texture.

Andrew Cunningham

Both Moto Gs feature very similar removable plastic backs.

Andrew Cunningham

Both SIM slots and the micro SD slot are under the Moto G's cover. The second SIM slot is only available in global models.

Andrew Cunningham

The Moto X (left) and Moto G (right) still share the same design touches, but the Moto X is clearly the premium phone.

Andrew Cunningham

The Moto X (top) has a metal rim and a non-removable back. It's a fair bit slimmer than the new Moto G (bottom), though they're both pretty similar overall.

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From left to right, the new Moto X, the old Moto X, the new Moto G, and the old Moto G. The first thing you'll notice about the new ones is how much larger they are.

Andrew Cunningham

The back of the phone can still be peeled off with some effort to expose the SIM slot, though the battery remains inaccessible. You can see the cutout for a second SIM slot in our pictures, but you won't actually find a slot there in US versions of the phone. New to the vanilla Moto G is a micro SD slot that can boost the 8GB of internal storage by up to 32GB. Both the LTE version of the first Moto G and the Moto E support micro SD storage, but the original Moto G didn't have any—we'd still recommend springing for the 16GB model even if you plan to add an SD card.

Further Reading

The phone can be purchased in either black or white, and the choice you make dictates the color of both the removable backplate and the front face. You can change the color of the backplate by buying $14.95 replacement plates or $29.99 flip covers in any of six colors, just as you could with the original Moto G. It can't rival the Moto X for sheer customizability, but it's a cheaper version of the same idea.

Having a removable back makes the phone just a bit thicker and heavier than the new Moto X, and that was also true of the old Moto G and X. Both phones still look very similar, it's just easy to tell which one is the budget model and which one is the premium option. One extra feature the new Moto G has that the new Moto X doesn't is a pair of front-facing speakers, a significant upgrade to the weak, single rear-facing speaker on the old Moto G. They don't sound bad for phone speakers—the front-facing speakers on the HTC One M8 make clearer and crisper sound, but the Moto G is just fine as a shower speaker or a YouTube machine.

Software

Enlarge/ The Moto phones still run mostly stock Android with a few Motorola- and carrier-supplied additions.

Andrew Cunningham

Software remains a strong suit of the entire Moto line, at least as long as you consider OEM skins like TouchWiz and Sense to be a liability instead of an asset. Motorola's reviewer guide shouts from the rooftops several of the same things we recommended to OEMs in our most recent Android update article: don't use skins. Add value through apps that can be updated through the Google Play store, not things that are built into (and must be updated alongside) the rest of the operating system. The result is the closest thing to a "stock" Android experience this side of a Nexus phone, and Motorola is promising at least one software update to replace the version of Android the phone is currently running (4.4.4).

By default, the Moto G uses "Launcher3" as its app launcher, which is essentially the Google Now Launcher without the Google Now integration. We went ahead and downloaded the regular Google Now Launcher anyway, but, even if you don't, the experience remains very Google-y. Google Play and most of the standard Google apps are pre-installed, with the exception of some optional ones that can easily be downloaded manually—Google Calendar, Google Keep, and Google Camera are examples of things you won't find the first time you fire the phone up.

Motorola includes just a handful of standard apps with its Moto phones, and, since they're updated through the Google Play store, you've probably already got most of them if you're using a previous-generation Moto G or Moto X.

The ones we've seen before are Motorola Migrate, an app that will help you transfer contacts and some other information from older Android phones (running Android 2.2 and up), iCloud accounts, and Bluetooth-enabled dumbphones; Motorola Assist, which will attempt to sense what you're doing based on the time, location, movement, or calendar events (whether you're driving to work, at home, in a meeting, or sleeping, for instance), and will offer to read your texts aloud, play music, or silence your phone, depending on what's appropriate; and the FM Radio app, which is just what it sounds like.

Another feature available on both the newer and older Moto phones (one that is, in fact, coming to vanilla Android in the L release) is a "trusted devices" feature that allows your phone to unlock without a passcode or pattern when within proximity of a paired Bluetooth device like a car or a smartwatch. Features like this make us a little nervous—if someone stole your locked, encrypted phone, all they'd need to do to get at everything on it would be to also steal your smartwatch or to quickly unlock it while still within range of one of your devices. It's an optional feature, but the L release will make it much more common.

New to this Moto G is the Motorola Alert app, which can send your location to selected recipients or automatically send text messages or dial emergency services if you hit the big red "emergency" button. It's not the kind of thing that everyone will use all the time, but it could be useful for someone who travels a lot and wants to let his or her family know where he or she is; if a couple or a group of people was on vacation and wanted to keep tabs on each other; or for parents want to track their kids. Given Motorola Assist's ability to keep tabs on your location and speed, it also seems strange that Assist wants you to dig your phone out and dive into the app to send alerts, something you might not be able to do in the event of a real emergency.

Our biggest complaint about the software relates to how the phone handles SD card storage. We went into a lot of detail on this in our Moto E review, and the new Moto G handles cards the same way. In short, in addition to KitKat's standard SD card support (individual apps can be transferred there, and apps can use it on an app-by-app basis, but access has been limited to improve security), Motorola has made it so that you can move pictures, videos, music, and downloaded files in bulk from internal storage to your SD card. The problem is that you have to repeat this process manually every time you need to do it instead of being able to set the SD card as the default target for these kinds of files (as Windows Phone can).

Individual applications can specify the SD card as a default storage target—the built-in camera app is one. You'll just need to rely on developers to support SD cards in their apps. Otherwise, if you like to carry a lot of stuff around with you on your phone, be prepared to be hands-on about storage management.

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Andrew Cunningham
Andrew wrote and edited tech news and reviews at Ars Technica from 2012 to 2017, where he still occasionally freelances; he is currently a lead editor at Wirecutter. He also records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites